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Mr. Morley's speech was not equally sanguine. As usual, he

sees very clearly indeed the difficulty of doing anything except what the Government are doing. He regards their line of policy as the line of least resistance ; but that is the most he claims for it. When he says that he does not believe that there is a Single man capable of political reflection " who does not know in his heart and mind that the extension of self-govern- ment in Ireland is as certain as necessary, and as urgent as inevitable," we have, we confess, the greatest possible difficulty in supposing him to be serious. Lord Spencer and he both agree that " Separation is impossible," though why any one should regard Separation as impossible, when they regard a step more dangerous than Separation as "inevitable," we cannot pretend to explain. But if Separation be impossible, that which promotes Separation cannot be inevitable ; and that the exten- sion of self-government in Ireland, in the sense which the present Government attach to that phrase, is likely to promote Separation, is held not only by thousands of sober-minded poli- ticians, but, we suspect, by a very great number of those who are now recommending Home-rnle, in order that, if it fails, they may return with the greater complacency to the use of force. The strongest part of Mr. Morley's speech was his demonstra- tion of the futility of the schemes for giving the Imperial Parlia- ment a veto on the Acts of the Irish Parliament, or for engrafting on Mr. Gladstone's scheme a raw Federalism, or for reducing it to a nullity by keeping the Irish representatives here as well as sending them to Dublin.